The Old Duchess
Artist: George Luks (American, 1866–1933)
Original Dimensions: 30" x 25"
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
About Artwork: (1905) "Luks’s bold paintings honor individuals from impoverished and immigrant communities, such as the Old Duchess. Featured in the Eight exhibition in 1908, the painting still had the power to shock eight years later when an admirer of the artist described the subject as "an elderly hag with a distinguished bearing . . . who wore five or six dresses at once, on her head a shapeless yet attractive gear, and in her pocket she carried a fat roll of bills for purposes of dissipation, or bribery, or for bailing out some Tenderloin wreck."" - (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

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